Tomobiki
by Reddwarfer
Summary: Fuji wants to follow Tezuka, always. Complete


Title: Tomobiki  
Rating: PG  
Pairing: Tezuka/Fuji  
Summary: Fuji wants to follow Tezuka, always.  
Disclaimer: The owners of PoT own PoT.  
Originally written for April 1, 2007

Kikumaru is on the courts facing Oishi with a grin, once again, trying to defeat his partner. Fuji watches with slight disinterest. He's seen this match a hundred times before, after all. And, he thinks as he looks to his side, Tezuka is far more interesting.

He shifts on his feet, leaning in toward Tezuka, nudges his shoulder with his own. "Looks like Eiji's already forgotten his complaints about practicing."

"Apparently," Tezuka returns, dryly, as if he knew all along, which he probably did.

Fuji smiles at that, touches the fence, and says, "Don't want to miss a minute of it, do you?"

"Hm." Tezuka crosses his arms across his chest, looking out over the courts. Anyone that knew him well enough would know it was with fondness. And, Fuji adds silently to himself as Momoshiro waves his arms wildly around at an irritated Kaidoh, also with exasperation.

There's only a little while left in the year, and Tezuka plans to make use of every practice, regardless if there's no upcoming matches to train for. Ryuuzaki doesn't care as long as everyone's working hard, even if she likes to take the time to nap in her office. There are still young players to mold, the future to plan for, and Tezuka wouldn't leave without doing things right.

An inch closer still, and Fuji can feel the fabric of Tezuka's shirt against his arm. "So," he begins, not knowing quite how to ask without sounding silly or desperate or both, "this weekend still good?"

He doesn't look over, but Tezuka moves closer to him, ever so slightly, and nods. Fuji can only see this out of the corner of his eyes, but he thinks Tezuka knows he's in Fuji's peripheral vision, anyhow.

"Good!" Fuji grins, bouncing slightly on his feet, and turns to look at Tezuka for a moment. He takes a sip of water from his bottle, offers it to Tezuka. "It'll be fun."

Tezuka looks over at him, lips curving just slightly, and agrees, "Yes, it will be."

He feels so delightfully in a good mood, he wants to ask Tezuka something ridiculously silly, something that will undoubtedly make him sigh or roll his eyes. Fuji opens his mouth to ask in deceptively serious voice, _Will you let me hold your pole?_, when Tezuka lets out a small hiss, grabbing his arm.

Fuji doesn't even have a chance to blink and Tezuka's on the ground, face pale, slight gasping noises coming from his mouth.

"Tezuka?" Fuji calls out, dropping to his knees, shaking roughly on his shoulders without thinking. "Tezuka?" he says again, louder. On the edge of his mind, he can hear a plod of footsteps heading in his direction, be he can't even think anything beyond, _Tezuka._

"Fuji? Tezuka! What happened?" Kikumaru practically shouts as he nears. Fuji tries to speak, finds his throat tight, words stuck inside, and chokes out, "_Tezuka_."

He tries to move Tezuka slightly, and feels something brush his knuckles. He flicks it away, a mere wasp. His mind's too foggy to make the connection.

Inui calmly relays every detail to what he assumes is the emergency services, but Fuji can't tear his eyes away from Tezuka's even for a second. His skin is so _dry_, so different than normal that he knows if he tried hard enough, he could fool himself into believing that this was someone else.

His mind is blank as he leans over, trying to breathe steadily in Tezuka's mouth. He's sure he's forgetting something, some step, because he can't make the loud hum in his ears stop long enough to _concentrate_. All he knows is that it's _not working_. All he knows is that Tezuka's not breathing and _he is_.

"Captain?" Echizen says from somewhere behind him. No one answers him. There's no need.

He can hear sirens, but can't tell if they're real or only in his mind.

"Fu-Fuji," Oishi says, tugging on his shoulder, "you can stop now."

He shrugs off Oishi's hand, and continues. He can't give up yet. He just can't.

"'Tezuka," he whispers, placing his ear slightly over Tezuka's mouth as he tries to feel, to listen, but feels, hears nothing. "Mitsu," he says again, even softer, before breathing for him again.

There's another tug at his shoulder; Kikumaru this time, he can tell, but he yanks his body away, and breathes again.

Fuji doesn't stop until he sees the black shoes of the emergency workers in front of him.

The first word Fuji hears, truly hears, is sorry. _Sorry_. He looks up at the doctor, with a suitably grim face, and blinks. Sorry. The word echoes in his mind and Fuji can't hear the rest of what he's saying. He lets the doctor say it to someone else, walks away.

Inui scribbles in his book, hanging on every single word about anaphylaxis, no doubt updating data that doesn't mean anything anymore. Kaidoh's head is his hands, shaking slightly in his chair. The rest, are standing still, not moving, not saying anything. Echizen's can of Ponta crashes to the floor, spilling.

He doesn't turn, doesn't say anything, just keeps walking until the sound of choked sobs and croaking voices are nothing more than din in the background. This time, no one tries to stop him.

He lets himself into his home; it's late, and no one's there. It's just as well because he hasn't touched his phone to explain where he's been.

Bypassing the kitchen, the living room, his bedroom, he heads straight for the bathroom, strips and sits in the shower until the water runs cold.

Fuji stares at the ground, seeing the drops of water fall to the floor as he dries, wishing he could have washed Tezuka. The thought of even voicing his request is so obscene he almost laughs.

His sister comes home that night, late, sometime past midnight and holds him close to her chest. This contact, he allows, but he doesn't hold her back. Fuji remains passive in her arms, idly wondering if she heard the news, or if the mystical forces contacted her. For the first time, he wishes fervently for the former. That some _being_ knew that this was to happen is too cruel, too soon, and too much for him to handle.

Fuji gets to his feet, doesn't speak to his sister as she calls out to him, and flops on his bed without so much as a word. _Sorry_ still echoes in his mind, mingling with the last thing he's uttered all day, _Mitsu._

Closing his eyes, he pretends to sleep until dawn.

The walk to school the morning is uncomfortable in its normalcy. It's exactly the same as it was the every day prior, except for the fact…Fuji kicks a rock, and considers lying to himself, perhaps something peppered with strange dreams, bad sushi, and vows to not eat again before sleeping.

Except that he knows he didn't sleep, didn't eat, and knows this isn't something he can wake up from.

He kicks another rock, looks at the building with a blank realization that he's already there, and heads for the courts.

Oishi's already there, everyone is, standing around in a sort of mute horror as if they woke up on stage, knowing they were supposed to be there, but forgot the lines.

As he gets closer, he realises that everyone is not there. Echizen's absent and he notices that it's not as mute as he thought. Kikumaru is waving his arms in the air, face red, wet, yelling at Oishi, who's trying to calm him.

"IT'S NOT TRUE," Kikumaru screams, turning to face everyone as he speaks, trying to convince them all of this fact that no one seems to understand. "HE CAN'T BE—" he chokes on the word, not able to even say it.

Oishi wraps his arms around his partner, patting his back, "Eiji," he murmurs, but says nothing else.

Kaidoh takes one glance at him, focusing back on the ground, and goes to run around the courts. One look at his gait says this is not the first set of laps he's run so far. Momoshiro mumbles under his breath, continues to hit a ball against a wall, harder and harder with every swing.

On the nearby bench, Inui sits, notebook closed, resting on his thigh, elbow digging into it as he presses his fingers against his closed eyes. His glasses are in the space next to him. The first time in three years he's taken them off, and no one cares at all.

This makes Fuji's throat clench.

"Taka-san," he manages to say after a few painful minutes, "has someone…"

Inui looks up at him, acknowledging him for the first time. "I called him last night."

"Ah," Fuji says with a nod, and almost cringes as Eiji's cries morph into infrequent gasps of breath, wet sniffling, and not-so-quiet whispers against Oishi's chest.

Feeling like a coward, Fuji turns and leaves, escaping before he can believe that their pain is somehow worse than his own.

He feels selfish in that moment, but doesn't care.

Instead, he returns home, goes to his room, and pulls out Tezuka's favourite lures. Tezuka let him photograph them, but he never had the chance to return them.

Fuji's at Tezuka's house before he even realised he began walking there. Staring at the door, he bites his lip not knowing what to say, how to say, but he hesitantly walks up to the door.

Tezuka's mother answers the door, nodding him inside, face puffy and red, but still beautiful despite it. He remembers her smile and the way she'd ruffle Tezuka's hair whenever she wanted to tease him, and the way she'd speak so proudly of him when he was in rehabilitation. Ayana makes tea like he walked to school, fraught with normalcy, borne of out habit and hating every second of it.

She serves him tea, looking at him expectantly.

"Here, Tezuka-san," he finally says in the steadiest voice he can manage, "th-they were his favourite."

He passes the box into her hands, not quite able to squelch the trembling in his own. "Thank you, Fuji-kun," she murmurs in reply. They both sit there, not looking at each other, but at the box of lures now setting on the table. Their tea gets cold, and knees stiff, but neither can move at all.

When he finally goes to leave, half in a bow, she reaches to him and hugs him close to her, body shaking slightly in her grief. He hugs back, clenches his eyes tight, and whispers empty words of false comfort in her ear. They mean nothing to either of them, but they can't not be said.

The same part of Fuji that wanted to wash him, irrationally wants to be a part of the bone ceremony. He feels helpless, desperate, because every second that he sits with everyone else, doing like everyone else, the more he feels irrelevant to Tezuka's life. There's a loud, insistent voice in his mind that wants to scream about how unfair it all is, but it can't be anything but.

His friends gather around, looking at each other as if looking enough would make things make sense. Echizen shows up with a scowl, black eye, and fat lip, and sits next to him. Fuji wishes he'd leave, because Tezuka was his first, his still, and Echizen doesn't have the right. He tries to tell himself that he's being unreasonable. It doesn't work. He sits back down and stares at nothing, not wanting to move, even when it's all over and most everybody's left.

Tezuka's mother calls him to her home. He wonders what she wants, if she's found the pictures of them that he gave to Tezuka, or one of the letters he wrote in the dead of night, mailing it before sense got the better of him, or the small gifts he's given Tezuka, or the hastily drawn comic page on the back of a take-out napkin. He shakes his head. Tezuka wouldn't keep those things, so it must be something else.

She looks hesitant as she serves him tea, with the expression of someone that doesn't know quite how to begin. Instead of speaking, she pushes the incense in front of him, and stands up, walks to the kitchen. He walks to the altar and lights it.

"The things you gave him," she says when she returns with more tea, "were in a box in his room. They're with him now," she adds.

Fuji sets down his teacup, and looks at her, unable to fully comprehend that these things were kept. "And his lures?" he asks, not knowing why.

She nods. This time, it's Fuji who reaches out, Fuji who shakes with grief, and Ayana whispering the necessary words that will never offer comfort in his ear.


End file.
